This Day
By Olusegun Adeniyi
The revelation by the National Law Drug Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) Chairman, Brigadier-General Buba Marwa (rtd) that close to two million Kano residents abuse tramadol, codeine, and other cough syrups, should concern not only state authorities but all stakeholders in the Nigeria project. While the figure may not be as high in other places, it is a notorious fact that substance abuse is a national problem today. Kano also presents a peculiar challenge. “In Kano State, drug abuse prevalence is 16 per cent. That is, in every six persons, one is a drug addict; and they are between the ages of 15 years and 64 years,” said Marwa during a courtesy visit to Governor Abdullahi Ganduje on Monday. “Drug abuse has gone to the level of destroying our families unless it is tackled with all seriousness it deserves,’’ he added.
As shocking as the revelation may seem, Marwa is not the first person to raise this alarm. In September 2015, Mr. Ali Baba Mustapha, then the assistant superintendent in charge of exhibits at the NDLEA Sokoto State Command, spoke about the increasing number of married women taking cough syrups that contain codeine. At about the same time, Daily Trust newspaper published a lengthy feature which revealed how Benylin, Emzolyn, and Asad as well as Rohypnol and Tramadol tablets were destroying families in the region. “There is the case of a new bride whose husband discovered under their bed, a carton of Tutolin, usually abused to induce intoxication and supposedly boost sexual drive,” the newspaper wrote. “Even before then, during the wedding, the loss of a necklace had prompted a search that led to the astonishing discovery that women at the occasion, mostly housewives, had varieties of cough syrup containing codeine in their handbags.”
Even the Senate has had to wade in on the problem. In October 2017, Senator Baba Kaka Bashir Garbai led 37 colleagues to move a motion on the “increasing abuse of cough and prescriptive drugs among the youth and women across the 19 northern states” which he argued “has devastated many upper- and middle-class families in the region.” Available statistics, according to Garbai, revealed that Kano and Jigawa states consume more than three million bottles of codeine syrup daily, while “young girls in tertiary institutions have taken to an alarming abuse of the codeine cough syrup, which is often mixed with soft drink.” The problem, Garbai added, “is destroying even mothers in homes, as they use same codeine and other drugs as an escape from their abusive relationships and invariably get hooked on them.”
